I write this testimony while jobless in Bangkok, Thailand.
If it were not for this thing called “born again” I should still be enjoying a
very good paying job with benefits and a handsome retirement package, and a
prestigious position in society with a lot of friends and associates.
I’m a fourth generation Seventh-day Adventist (SDA), a PK (preacher's kid) of a father who was one of the early educator missionaries to the island of Mindanao, Philippines. He was also a president of Mountain View College. My mother was one of the authors of the SDA elementary text books in the 50’s through the 70’s.
I am a physician for 25 years and was employed by the SDA church to manage one of its health facilities situated in the beautiful campus of Mountain View College, an Adventist Theology school. This job I held for 17 years. My sister and only sibling is also a doctor and married to an SDA doctor who was also an administrator in another SDA health facility [Davao Adventist Hospital]. My two children and wife are Adventists and so are the clans of my mother and father. Due to my parents’ prominence in the SDA church hierarchy we are well known among the Adventists in the central and southern Philippines.
Five years ago, at the age of 47 I realized that the specifics of my salvation were not clear to me and in a sense hereditary, so to speak. I determined one night to get the details from the Bible and so I sat down at the dining table with an old KJV bible in my hand. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know where to start. So I said a simple prayer that God would put my hand to the exact page where I should begin. After praying I opened the Bible at random and there was Romans Chapter 1 right before my eyes. I didn’t see any importance why God would direct me to that page until I was into chapter 2 when I realized that I could understand everything very clearly just like I was reading a kid’s book. I read through the whole book of Romans twice that night before retiring to bed. The following morning I woke up with the same ecstatic feeling of the absolute assurance of salvation and it was only then that I realized that I was possessed by the Holy Spirit.
The months that followed were the most trying times in my life. I just couldn’t keep the truths to myself and I was seen almost every day talking with the instructors of the School of Theology. It was not long before the Church Board had to convene to officially question me and get my stand in faith. After that meeting there was no question in their minds that I no longer believed in the church’s doctrines. My wife who was an administrator of the school and my two children who were in college were caught in the crossfire, and they blamed me for all the trouble that was taking place, while telling me to shut up and abide by the church’s doctrines. It came to the point where my daughter ran away from home and my son threatened to burn my Bible. My wife threatened to leave me three times and finally she resigned from her office without consulting me, packed her things and moved to the city of her mother with my two children. I was forced to move with them too but I didn’t resign from my work and kept up my presence in the campus on weekdays and while spending the weekends with my family.
After a year my daughter couldn’t stand it any longer and asked me to sit down and point out from the Bible my beliefs. In an hour she believed and immediately received the Holy Spirit. Her conversion was so dramatic that her brother took notice and soon also asked to sit down with me for Bible study. In that same moment he too received the Holy Spirit and that left only my wife who stood firm in the SDA faith for the next two years in spite of our prayers and soft talk with her.
Two years later she developed an ovarian cyst that immediately required surgery. The doctors removed her uterus and both ovaries and she was discharged after nine days. Three weeks after that operation she developed abdominal pain and started throwing up. We took her to the hospital where the doctors reopened her and resected six inches of her intestines, which was gangrenous after being trapped in the stump of her uterus.
On the second post-operative day she called me to her bed and told me that she wanted me to pray for her. After three years of estrangement she finally allowed me to pray for her. I told her that I have been praying all the time for her and that God was just waiting for her to surrender her spirit to Him. She said that she was so confused and didn’t know how to pray for herself so I told her to repeat my prayer out loud so that God would hear it from her lips. She did and at that moment the Holy Spirit seized her and we become a family united in one spirit.
After some time the Church became alarmed because there were some students and faculty members who were already secretly meeting with me to study the Bible. They finally decided to disfellowship (excommunicate) me from the church, which they succeeded but without the use of a single Bible verse, because they just couldn’t find the right verse to use against me. Two months later they also found the alibi to kick me from my job and I had no other course but to leave.
I praise God for all the years of testing and trials that has firmly bound us as a family. I also thank Him for miraculously opening jobs for my wife and two children in a country – Thailand, where I could work as an independent missionary to the poorest of the poor. We now reside in Bangkok and fellowship with God’s children at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok.
My mother became a born-again Christian before she died. My sister, her husband and their four children eventually found the truth after vigorously trying to dissuade me from my decision, and they too left the SDA church and are now worshiping with the Baptists in Bakersfield, California. My father, who passed away in 1986, would never know that his family would see the truth and leave the church.
I offer this testimony to the author and finisher of my faith, my savior, Jesus. To God give all the glory, honor and praise. (written in 2008)
I’m a fourth generation Seventh-day Adventist (SDA), a PK (preacher's kid) of a father who was one of the early educator missionaries to the island of Mindanao, Philippines. He was also a president of Mountain View College. My mother was one of the authors of the SDA elementary text books in the 50’s through the 70’s.
I am a physician for 25 years and was employed by the SDA church to manage one of its health facilities situated in the beautiful campus of Mountain View College, an Adventist Theology school. This job I held for 17 years. My sister and only sibling is also a doctor and married to an SDA doctor who was also an administrator in another SDA health facility [Davao Adventist Hospital]. My two children and wife are Adventists and so are the clans of my mother and father. Due to my parents’ prominence in the SDA church hierarchy we are well known among the Adventists in the central and southern Philippines.
Five years ago, at the age of 47 I realized that the specifics of my salvation were not clear to me and in a sense hereditary, so to speak. I determined one night to get the details from the Bible and so I sat down at the dining table with an old KJV bible in my hand. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know where to start. So I said a simple prayer that God would put my hand to the exact page where I should begin. After praying I opened the Bible at random and there was Romans Chapter 1 right before my eyes. I didn’t see any importance why God would direct me to that page until I was into chapter 2 when I realized that I could understand everything very clearly just like I was reading a kid’s book. I read through the whole book of Romans twice that night before retiring to bed. The following morning I woke up with the same ecstatic feeling of the absolute assurance of salvation and it was only then that I realized that I was possessed by the Holy Spirit.
The months that followed were the most trying times in my life. I just couldn’t keep the truths to myself and I was seen almost every day talking with the instructors of the School of Theology. It was not long before the Church Board had to convene to officially question me and get my stand in faith. After that meeting there was no question in their minds that I no longer believed in the church’s doctrines. My wife who was an administrator of the school and my two children who were in college were caught in the crossfire, and they blamed me for all the trouble that was taking place, while telling me to shut up and abide by the church’s doctrines. It came to the point where my daughter ran away from home and my son threatened to burn my Bible. My wife threatened to leave me three times and finally she resigned from her office without consulting me, packed her things and moved to the city of her mother with my two children. I was forced to move with them too but I didn’t resign from my work and kept up my presence in the campus on weekdays and while spending the weekends with my family.
After a year my daughter couldn’t stand it any longer and asked me to sit down and point out from the Bible my beliefs. In an hour she believed and immediately received the Holy Spirit. Her conversion was so dramatic that her brother took notice and soon also asked to sit down with me for Bible study. In that same moment he too received the Holy Spirit and that left only my wife who stood firm in the SDA faith for the next two years in spite of our prayers and soft talk with her.
Two years later she developed an ovarian cyst that immediately required surgery. The doctors removed her uterus and both ovaries and she was discharged after nine days. Three weeks after that operation she developed abdominal pain and started throwing up. We took her to the hospital where the doctors reopened her and resected six inches of her intestines, which was gangrenous after being trapped in the stump of her uterus.
On the second post-operative day she called me to her bed and told me that she wanted me to pray for her. After three years of estrangement she finally allowed me to pray for her. I told her that I have been praying all the time for her and that God was just waiting for her to surrender her spirit to Him. She said that she was so confused and didn’t know how to pray for herself so I told her to repeat my prayer out loud so that God would hear it from her lips. She did and at that moment the Holy Spirit seized her and we become a family united in one spirit.
After some time the Church became alarmed because there were some students and faculty members who were already secretly meeting with me to study the Bible. They finally decided to disfellowship (excommunicate) me from the church, which they succeeded but without the use of a single Bible verse, because they just couldn’t find the right verse to use against me. Two months later they also found the alibi to kick me from my job and I had no other course but to leave.
I praise God for all the years of testing and trials that has firmly bound us as a family. I also thank Him for miraculously opening jobs for my wife and two children in a country – Thailand, where I could work as an independent missionary to the poorest of the poor. We now reside in Bangkok and fellowship with God’s children at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok.
My mother became a born-again Christian before she died. My sister, her husband and their four children eventually found the truth after vigorously trying to dissuade me from my decision, and they too left the SDA church and are now worshiping with the Baptists in Bakersfield, California. My father, who passed away in 1986, would never know that his family would see the truth and leave the church.
I offer this testimony to the author and finisher of my faith, my savior, Jesus. To God give all the glory, honor and praise. (written in 2008)
All the hardships and difficulties of the past are nothing compared to the joy and peace you are experiencing today. Praise God!
ReplyDeleteThanks bro, nothing brings true lasting peace and joy than that which is in the Holy Spirit.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first met Sunni in MVC during the mid 70s, there never was a hint of that spirituality that I now so much revere. The good-looking pin-up boy that he was writing this blog now is such a revelation beyond my wild expectation.
ReplyDeleteI dedicate the following lines to the man -
There's the man who loves his fellow man and is quick to forgiveness towards his enemies,
he is a man of peace and love.
He who preserves the honor of his father and mother and looks after the welfare of his family,
he is a man worthy of honor and admiration.
He who severs all attachments and conquers the craving of fortune and fame and all that is held dear to his heart,
the man is an enlightened being.
There's the man who lives in contentment and enjoys the fruits of his labors all the days in his life,
he is a man deserving to walk the gates of heaven.
There's the man who helps the unfortunate expecting nothing for himself in return,
he deserves to be called the man of God.
There's the man with pure and clean heart, whose fellowship is pure joy,
he is the man whose salvation is SEALED.
All portals in heaven open only for him while angels sing the praises to the irreproachable being.
What need is there for a Biblical phrase to uphold this man's right to sit near the throne of his Master?
thanks bro... not much flattery comes my way nowadays and your words are like a cool glass of watery in a hot desert. I know that you mean every word you wrote and that's why you've been a true brother and friend all these years. we should pick up your guitar and croon a song one more time. love you bro.
ReplyDeleteGLORY TO GOD!!! I CAN STILL REMEMBER THE FIRE WITHIN U WHEN U HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD!!! AWESOME!!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK OF SHARING UR TESTIMONY TO THOSE WHO HAVE NOT KNOWN OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
ReplyDeleteHi Sunni boy bro; My family and yours grew up together in MVC and we met after 45 years in BKK Thailand. You were able to talk to Henry Pallasa about your testimony but this is the first time I learned about it by reading about it here. I did'nt tell you but since my close encounter with death in 1999 my encounter with the Holy Spirit came as a process. I was also unemployed and went to the USA to get employment and have my Philippine diploma recognized here in North America. I got employed and got the experience to back up my accreditation to have my diploma from UP recognized and at the same time my spiritual habits widened. I started attending different SDA churches and when I went to California I attended the "Church without walls" and there found the gospel more interesting. I also attended Saddleback and the Crystal Cathedral and found their gospel of grace enlightening. When I came back to Toronto, I found a similar group called Connexions Ministry which was led by a an Adventist having a similar message but with more Adventist fundamentals mixed in the same bowl. I already had an encounter with the Holy Spirit with the "Church without Walls" and it was recieved with disbelief and some judgemental expected reactions,but that did not deter me.The Church without walls has started keeping Sunday as their worship day and has totally thrown out EGW writings. Connexions Ministry is now on its own and is the gossip of the other SDA chiurches around and they now have an ex Methodist minister leading their Sabbath worship. I think it is the best of my worship experiences!
ReplyDeletethanks for your story bro... i now know that you understand what i have been through and how i stand in the presence of God. if you are alluding to the group of Jessie and John Tulio in the "church without walls" then i know what you're talking about. i know the couple very well and their ministry. had dinner with them one time in their house at LA and we regularly communicate about their ministry in Palawan and other cities in pinas.
ReplyDeletethe adventists have to outgrow their cultic mentality and open their minds to the truth that salvation is not limited to a day of a week or the food that we eat. they have to tear down the doctrinal wall that they have built between them and the rest of christianity. they have to come down from the pedestal of self-righteousness and stop being judge to their neighbor. only then will they realize what the death of Jesus means and fall prostrate at the foot of the cross.
i praise God for reuniting us physically and spiritually. may God's spirit give you the courage to defend the true and undefiled gospel before the unbelieving church of our birth. love you bro!
Greatly enjoyed reading your testimony and these comments. So glad that God preserved your family intact, also. Gloria Deo!
ReplyDelete